Slate has some good ideas for injecting a bit more excitement into the presidential debates. My favorite is creating round-robin debates based on random draws that end in three candidate face-offs where one participant is always over 10% in the national polls. That way the frontrunners would submit to serious scrutiny, the debates would actually offer the participants time to discuss ideas, and the second tier candidates would have a chance to break out.
On a totally other note, I'm off to the Hillman awards, and won't be back in town till tomorrow night. Blogging will be light, at best. If the Weekenders want to jump in, they're certainly welcome to.